Uruguay

Full name of country: Oriental Republic of Uruguay

Region: South America

Official language: Spanish

Population: 3,425,330 (2024 est.)

Nationality: Uruguayan(s) (noun), Uruguayan (adjective)

Land area: 175,015 sq km (67,574 sq miles)

Water area: 1,200 sq km (463 sq miles)

Capital: Montevideo

National anthem: “Himno Nacional” (National Anthem of Uruguay), by Francisco Esteban Acuna De Figueroa/Francisco Jose Debali

National holiday: Independence Day, August 25 (1825)

Population growth: 0.26% (2024 est.)

Time zone: UTC –3

Flag: The flag of Uruguay features a field (or background) composed of nine equal horizontal stripes alternating between white and blue. A square canton (in the upper left corner), five stripes in length, features the Sun of May symbol, a sixteen-rayed golden sun with a human face that represents the Inca sun god, Inti. The nine stripes represent Uruguay’s nine original departments (there are now nineteen).

Motto: “Libertad o Muerte” (Liberty or Death)

Independence: August 25, 1825 (from Brazil)

Government type: constitutional republic

Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal and compulsory

Legal system: civil law system based on the Spanish civil code

The República Oriental del Uruguay (Republic of Uruguay) is located in the southeastern part of South America, and is bordered by Argentina to the west, northwest, and southwest, Brazil to the northeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast.

Uruguay has one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Its extensive social welfare system includes free, high quality education and health care. Unlike other Latin American countries, Uruguay does not suffer from overpopulation or extreme poverty, nor is it in a state of environmental degradation.

Note: unless otherwise indicated, statistical data in this article is sourced from the CIA World Factbook, as cited in the bibliography.

People and Culture

Population: Most Uruguayans are descended from the Spaniards who settled in Uruguay between the eighteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. Some are descended from Italian immigrants who came to Uruguay at the end of the nineteenth century. There are also small Portuguese, French, English, German, and African populations living in Uruguay.

The majority of Uruguayans identify as White. Minority groups include Mestizo (people with mixed Spanish and Indigenous heritage), Black, and Indigenous peoples.

Spanish is Uruguay’s official language, but it has been influenced by Uruguay’s Portuguese-speaking neighbors. Near the border with Brazil, a combination of Spanish and Portuguese called Brazilero is spoken.

There is a marked separation of church and state in Uruguay. Although an estimated 42 percent of the population were Roman Catholic in 2023, many are not devout, especially compared to their Latin American neighbors. Another 15 percent identified as Protestant and 43 percent as "religious but unaffiliated."

There are nineteen official departments and three unofficial regions in Uruguay. The regions are divided into the interior, in the central and northern parts of the country; the Atlantic seaboard, in the southeast; and the littoral, on the shores of the Rio de la Plata and the Rio Uruguay in the west and southwest.

By 2023, 95.8 percent of Uruguayans lived in urban areas. About half of Uruguayans live in Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital and largest city with a population of 1.774 million in 2023. Montevideo is located in the southernmost part of Uruguay, on the northern shore of the Rio de la Plata.

Uruguay’s population growth is extremely stable, unlike that of other Latin American countries, many of which are severely overpopulated. The Uruguayan infant mortality rate is 8 deaths per 1,000 live births, and Uruguayans have an average life expectancy of 78.9 years (2024 estimates). Based on quality-of-life indicators, Uruguay was ranked 52 out of 193 countries and territories on the United Nations Human Development Index in 2022.

Indigenous People: The territory that would eventually become Uruguay was settled in 6000 BCE by stone tool-bearing hunter-gatherers who would, over the course of 6,000 years, branch into three tribes of Indigenous people: the Chaná, the Guaraní, and the Charrúa.

The Chaná, the Guaraní, and the Charrúa were all well-established in the territory when the Spanish settled there in the sixteenth century, but were wiped out by mass extermination, disease, and assimilation over the next three hundred years. The Chaná and the Guaraní disappeared in the sixteenth century, and the Charrúa lingered until the nineteenth century. Few Indigenous people remain in Uruguay, although the Guaraní still reside in larger numbers in other South American countries.

Education: Uruguay’s educational system is one of the best in Latin America, which accounts for the country’s estimated literacy rate of about 98.8 percent in 2019. Uruguayan children attend primary school for six years, from ages six to eleven, and then secondary school from ages twelve to seventeen. Secondary school is divided into two three-year cycles.

Education is compulsory for children from early childhood education through basic secondary school. Public education is free, but private schools charge tuition. According to United Nations data, by 2018, 56 percent Uruguayans over age twenty-five had attended some or all of secondary school.

The two largest universities in Uruguay are both located in Montevideo. They are the University of the Republic, a free public institution, and the Catholic University of Uruguay, a private institution that charges tuition. Other major institutions include the ORT Uruguay University and the University of Montevideo.

Health Care: Because 80 percent of Uruguayans had health care coverage in 2017, and medical care is easily accessible and of high quality with an emphasis on preventative medicine, the overall health of Uruguayans is good.

Uruguay’s health care system includes both private and public health care, with private care being slightly superior to government-subsidized public care. But most Uruguayans use the services of private, for-profit providers.

Food: Lunch is the largest meal of the day in Uruguay and can last several hours. Breakfast is a modest affair, and the last meal of the day, also light, is eaten around 10 p.m.

Uruguayan cuisine is meat-based; Uruguay is one of the largest consumers of beef in the world. Most dishes contain beef or chicken, often barbequed. Barbeque, or parillada, is so popular that practically all Uruguayan homes come equipped with an outdoor grill.

Uruguayan dishes are influenced by Spanish and Italian cuisine. Dishes with a Spanish flavor include puchero, a beef stew with vegetables and a spicy sauce; moncilla, blood sausage; empanadas, pastry turnovers; húngaros, spicy sausage served on a bun hot dog-style; and chivitos, a sandwich with steak, cheese, egg, tomato, and lettuce on a bun. Italian-influenced dishes incorporate pasta.

The most popular drink in Uruguay is maté, a brew of the bitter-tasting yerba maté herb that is consumed like coffee or tea. It is served in a dried gourd and sipped through a metal tube called a bombilla.

Arts & Entertainment: There is strong public support for the performing, visual, and literary arts in Uruguay. Montevideo houses the famous Teatro Solís, in which the National Comedy company performs plays by Latin American playwrights, and the Sala Verdi theater. Montevideo also has many notable art galleries that feature works by early and contemporary Uruguayan artists.

Literature is probably the most popular of all Uruguayan forms of artistic expression. There is a wealth of Uruguayan authors, poets, and playwrights dating back to the nineteenth century. Prominent twentieth-century Uruguayan writers included José Enrique Rodó (1872–1917), Mario Benedetti (1920–2009), and Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015).

Songwriting has traditionally been a means of expressing social and political concerns in Uruguay, and the tradition has endured into modern times. Popular song forms include the murgas, the canto popular, and the tango.

The tango is Uruguay’s most popular style of music and dance. A tango combines two accordions (called bandoneons), two violins, a double bass, and a piano to create dramatic music to which a man and woman dance intimately. The candombe is another favorite style of music and dance that incorporates African drums.

The largest festival celebrated in Uruguay is Carnival, a multiday party that precedes the Catholic season of Lent. During Carnival, musicians and dancers take to the streets, and neighborhood communities put on street plays called tabladas.

Football (soccer) is Uruguay’s national sport. Water sports such as sailing and swimming are also popular.

Holidays: Desembarco de los 33 Orientales (Return of the thirty-three exiles) on April 19 commemorates the arrival of the Immortal Thirty-Three, a group of Montevideo exiles who helped Uruguay win the war for independence in 1825. The Battle of Las Piedras is commemorated on May 18, a celebration of the victory of national hero José Artigas, who expelled the Spanish governor from Montevideo in 1814. Artigas's birthday is also commemorated as a public holiday on June 19. Independence Day (August 25) involves festivities held in Independence Square in Montevideo.

Christian holidays that are observed in Uruguay include Three Kings' Day on January 6, Carnival in February or March, Holy Week in March or April, Día de los Difuntos (Day of the Deceased) on November 2, and Christmas in December.

Environment and Geography

Topography: Low rolling hills and plains cover three-quarters of Uruguay’s terrain. The remainder is mostly made up of level coastline along the Atlantic seaboard and level wetlands along the Rio Uruguay and the Rio de la Plata.

Uruguay has no distinct geographical features with the exception of two ridges of low elevation: the Cuchilla de Haedo that extends from the north to central interior, and the Cuchilla Grande that extends from the northeast to the southeast. Uruguay’s highest point is Cerro Catedral in the southeast, which has an elevation of 514 meters (1,685 feet) above sea level.

The Rio Uruguay is the country’s longest river at 435 kilometers (270 miles). The river acts as Uruguay’s western border, separating Uruguay from Argentina. The Rio Uruguay flows into the Rio de la Plata in the southwest, an estuary that empties into the Atlantic Ocean.

Another of Uruguay’s major rivers is the Rio Negro. It flows into the centrally located Black River Lake, the largest artificial lake in South America.

Natural Resources: With the exception of small deposits of minerals and hydropower, Uruguay has no natural resources. Most of the country’s economy depends on the processing of animal products from the country’s extensive livestock operations.

Plants & Animals: The bulk of Uruguay is blanketed by the Uruguayan savanna, a prairie consisting of over four hundred species of annual and perennial grasses. Palm savannas are located near the Brazilian border and in the south near the coast, and small forests grow near Uruguay’s rivers in the east.

Gallery forests contain hardwood and softwood trees and aromatic shrubs. Hardwood trees include algarobo, quebracho, coronilla, lapacho, guayabo, urunday, espinillo, lignum vitae, and nandubay. Softwood trees include acacia, eucalyptus (imported from Australia), ombú, alder, aloe, poplar, willow, mimosa, and ceibo.

Most large mammals are extinct in Uruguay, but small to medium-sized animals inhabit the forests and the higher elevations in the north. Rheas, five-foot tall flightless birds similar to ostriches, populate these areas as well.

Animals native to Uruguay include deer, otter, the small armadillo, the three-toed anteater, the coatimundi, and large rodents such as the capybara and the nutria. Seals and sea lions can be found off Punta del Este, a resort area along the coast east of Montevideo.

Approximately eighty species of birds nest in the Uruguayan savanna. These include horneros (or oven birds), quail, crows, and partridge. In the wetlands along the rivers and the coast there are over four hundred species of birds, including swans, royal ducks, and ostrich.

Freshwater fish such as golden salmon, pejerry, piranha, tararira, criolla, pompano, corvina, pacú, and surubí are abundant in Uruguay’s rivers.

Climate: Uruguay is located in the Southern Hemisphere, which means that its summer lasts from December to February, and winter lasts from June to August. The average temperature in summer ranges from 17 to 28 degrees Celsius (63 to 82 degrees Fahrenheit), and the average winter temperature ranges from 6 to 14 degrees Celsius (43 to 57 degrees Fahrenheit). During the summer, it is much hotter along the Rio Uruguay than in the interior of the country.

Average yearly rainfall is 105 centimeters (41 inches). Rainfall is distributed relatively evenly, although summer months receive slightly less than winter months and the south receives slightly less than the north. Uruguay experienced its worst drought in over seventy years in early 2023. Because there are no mountains to act as barriers, strong winds rip through Uruguay in winter and spring.

Economy

Uruguay’s economy is service-based. The service sector constituted 66.3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023 and employed 71.6 percent of the nation’s labor force, a far larger share than agriculture or industry, in 2018. In 2023, agriculture contributed an estimated 5.6 percent of the GDP, and industry accounted for an estimated 16.4 percent.

In 2023, Uruguay's GDP was estimated at US$77.241 billion and per capita GDP was an estimated US$30,700. The unemployment rate was an estimated 8.35 percent in 2023.

Industry: Major industries include food and beverage processing and the manufacture of transportation equipment, electrical machinery, petroleum products, chemicals, and textiles.

The country’s most important exports are wood pulp, meat, and other animal products. These include leather, wool, dairy products, and fish. Uruguay imports crude petroleum, medication, vehicles, and electronics.

Agriculture: Rice is one of the most abundant crops cultivated in Uruguay, along with soybeans, wheat, and wine grapes.

Meat production from livestock tends to be quite profitable. In the northern part of Uruguay are large ranches of more than 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres). Ranchers, who take advantage of Uruguay’s natural grasslands, raised 6.4 million sheep and 11.4 million head of cattle in 2019, according to Uruguayan and US government data.

Grains and cereals, such as wheat, are grown in the east, and fruits and vegetables in the south, mostly on small farms. In total 87.2 percent of the land in Uruguay is used for agricultural purposes (2018 est.).

Tourism: Uruguay attracts tourists from all over the world, though primarily from neighboring South American countries. In 2019 there were an estimated 3.48 million tourist arrivals. Though the tourism industry experienced a significant decline due to the impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, numbers of visitors to Uruguay began to near pre-pandemic levels by 2022. That year 2.46 million tourists traveled to Uruguay, according to the country's Ministry of Tourism.

One of Uruguay’s most popular tourist destinations is Punta del Este, a coastal resort area east of Montevideo. Punta del Este boasts over 40 kilometers (25 miles) of beach and numerous luxury resorts, many of which are government-owned.

Montevideo is also a tourist hotspot, offering a wide variety of attractions. Tourists flock to its theaters, art galleries, museums, and restaurants. Ciudad Vieja is an area of Montevideo that has restored neoclassical buildings from the nineteenth century.

Government

Uruguay is a constitutional republic. Following its independence from Brazil in 1825, the country became an independent state in 1828, under the terms of the Treaty of Montevideo.

The executive branch consists of the president, who is both the chief of state and the head of government; the vice president; and a cabinet called the Council of Ministers. The president and vice president are elected by popular vote to five-year terms. The Council of Ministers is selected by the president.

The legislative branch is the General Assembly, a bicameral body comprising the Chamber of Senators and the Chamber of Representatives. The Chamber of Senators has thirty-one seats, while the Chamber of Representatives has ninety-nine.

The judicial branch is based on the Spanish civil law system and consists of the Supreme Court of Justice, courts of appeal, district courts, peace courts, and rural courts. The constitution provides for separation of powers between the judicial branch and other branches of government, meaning that the president, vice president, cabinet, or General Assembly cannot control decisions made by the courts.

There are two major political parties in Uruguay. The Blanco Party, or the National Party, represents the conservatives and tend to be the minority party. The Colorado Party represents the liberal urban class, and has traditionally been the majority party in the General Assembly. A third party, the Broad Front (Frente Amplio) is a broad coalition of leftist political groups that ended 170 years of two-party political control by the Blanco Party and the Colorado Party in 2004.

Interesting Facts

• Uruguay was the first Latin American country to grant women the right to vote.
• In December 2013 Uruguay became the first nation in the world to legalize the trade of marijuana; in 2018 it became the first country to legally produce and sell marijuana for recreational use.
• Because of the separation between church and state in Uruguay, some religious holidays also have secular names. For instance, Christmas is often called “Family Day.”
• Uruguay has the highest number of cattle per capita in the world. In 2022 there were more than three cows for every person in Uruguay.

Bibliography

“2019 Report on International Religious Freedom: Uruguay.” US Department of State, 2020, www.state.gov/reports/2019-report-on-international-religious-freedom/uruguay. Accessed 24 June 2022.‌

"Economic Impact Reports." World Travel and Tourism Council, 2020, wttc.org/Research/Economic-Impact. Accessed 24 June 2022.

"Incoming Tourism 2022." Ministry of Tourism, 14 Feb. 2022, www.gub.uy/ministerio-turismo/datos-y-estadisticas/estadisticas/turismo-receptivo-2022. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.

“Uruguay.” Human Development Reports, United Nations Development Programme, 13 Mar. 2024, hdr.undp.org/data-center/specific-country-data#/countries/URY. Accessed 6 Jan 2025.

“Uruguay.” OEC, Observatory of Economic Complexity, oec.world/en/profile/country/ury. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.

“Uruguay.” The World Bank, 14 Oct 2024, data.worldbank.org/country/uruguay. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.

“Uruguay.” The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 29 Dec. 2024, www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/uruguay/. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.